


Cold and Dark

by FreezePride



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Drama, Father and Son, Feelz, Gen, I HAVE TOO MANY FEELINGS FOR THESE TWO, M/M, Other, XD, sometimes it seeps out of me in the form of fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2731226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezePride/pseuds/FreezePride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The failures of the past so inevitably lead to the bitterness of the present.  Even confronts Ienzo about his choices and his loyalties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold and Dark

  
“You can’t keep doing this.”  
  
Even looked absolutely certain.  He stared down at Ienzo was an accusation in his glare and a tirade about to burst from his entirely too eloquent mouth at a moment’s notice.  Ienzo narrowed his crystalline eyes at the other man, daring him to try it.  There was a deep anger, a rivalry bubbled beneath the surface of the prodigy’s thoughts and glared daggers back at the elder scientist.  He sneered and leaned easily on one hip.  
  
“Is that so?  I would like to see you try to stop me.  It’s so surprising to hear you want to impede the flow of research, Even.” Ienzo sighed, leaning a gloved hand on the table top, as though he simply could not be bothered to speak with the man.  He continued in an easy pensive tone, letting the thoughts linger and bleed like dagger wounds.  “So very sentimental and horribly unscientific.” He reflected.  
  
Even made a disgruntled noise which Ienzo could only imagine was the human equivalent of having one’s balloon deflated.  “Xehanort is crossing the line.  I won’t have you joining him in the endeavor.  Master Ansem forbids us-”  
  
“Master Ansem be damned.” Ienzo hissed fiercely, causing an involuntary flinch from his companion.  For all of his cold antics, Even could be all too revealing at times.  “He isn’t even here.  Is he ever here?” The boy snapped, rounding on his opponent, daring him to challenge his facts; because, in the end, they were facts.  Throughout the entirety of his childhood where had the elder ‘master’ been?  Where had the kindly old scientist disappeared off to when Ienzo was alone, entrenched in study and abandoned by his supposed caretaker?  Where had he been when Even was far too obsessed to even notice a child starving for far more than just ‘attention’ or ‘education’?   
  
Where had he been when the nightmares began, so very many years ago now?  
  
“Master Ansem is a fool and I will not allow myself to be held back by him.” He finished with a tone of finality.  “I’ve chosen my loyalties.  You would do best to join me, or of course, you’re free to perish by opposing us.” There was a remarkable coldness to his words which reminded Even strikingly of himself, particularly the knowing smirk which followed it.  For the first time in many long years, the elder was having trouble finding a retort.  He felt like his mind had abandoned him in his moment of need.  
  
And he was losing him.  Oh, darkness, he was losing him.  
  
The verbal slap to the face had left a stinging, bitter taste in his mouth, as though Even were watching a children’s toy being made to conceal a knife.  Blood was pounding in his temples, thrumming and roaring underneath the surface and leaving him so terribly dumbfounded.  Before he knew it, he was moving forward.  It had been the first blind action he had made in far too long; the first instinct he would allow to seep through his usual planned, emotionless facade in what felt like decades.  He rushed forward and embraced the young prodigy, a desperate man clinging to the past, longing for happier, simpler times.  “Please, child.  See reason.”  
  
Ienzo didn’t move, he didn’t breath, he didn’t blink.  No, he couldn’t.  He let it linger, this moment, held suspended by the florescent lights of the labs, all to revealing of the details of the unraveling man before him: the wrinkled lab coat, the trembling hands, the porcelain pale skin, burned by acid and any other variety of chemicals they came in contact with on a daily basis, the thin frame of one who could not be bothered for long enough to actually consume a meal.  This was a man under far too much stress, who refused to admit it: a man who wanted the prestige of knowledge and respect, but so dimly unprepared for the consequences.  
  
It had been Even’s responsibility to protect them.  Oh how miserably he had failed.  
  
Quite suddenly revolted by the entire prospect of even being in contact with this shadow of an individual, Ienzo shoved him away forcefully, sending him careening into another lab table, with a force which could only be brought about by the element of surprise.  With the sickeningly loud crunch of broken glass, Even realized that his latest experiments had just been absolutely destroyed.  In a moment more, he would realize that the blood on the table contaminating them was his own.  He looked down at his hands, traced the sleek rivulets of blood as they filled the creases of his hand, running down his arms, staining his coat.  He should be feeling pain right now, should he not?, he questioned numbly.  
  
“You are not permitted to call me that.” How could this possibly be the child he had raised?  That voice, it was simply not human.  It hissed and spat, positively invading his mind, his inner consciousness.  Even glanced at the young man tentatively, as though not wanting the answer which was inevitably coming.  Ienzo was absolutely bathed in darkness, his visible crystalline eye positively glowing from the hollow caverns of his face, tracing slate blue hair lovingly, tenderly.  “You are a failure as a scientist, as a human being.” it continued, relentless.  The lights above them flickered, sputtering and swaying.  
  
“You were never my father.”  
  
He slid to the floor, feeling powerless, horrified.  The darkness seemed to take shape, to  swirl and saunter ever closer, but Even’s eyes were only locked on to the young man before him, blood dripping from his wounded hands and arms as he clenched his slender digits into fists, trying to keep his thoughts cohesive but one, above all else, fought to gain a voice.  It was all Even could do but to oblige.  
  
“You were always my son.”   
  
It was the truth, and between the two of them they were both well aware; but it hit Even full force now as he sat at the base of his ruined experiments, smelling spilled chemicals and the twisted tang of blood, looking at his inhuman prodigy, his corrupted apprentice.  He had tried his best to be a guardian, but he had never asked for that responsibility; no, it had been forced upon him, along with all of the other responsibilities that came with having the great Master Ansem absent from the castle most (if not nearly all) of the time.  Even was the elder scientist, the main apprentice.  It was his duty to keep the castle in check.  He had been so young, so very ridiculously young when he learned to hide himself behind cold words and calculations.  Now, when he needed to show his feelings most, he found that was an absolute impossibility, and perhaps they no longer even existed beneath so many layers of ice.  
  
The light flickered off, and then there was only the cold and the dark.


End file.
